For accountant Liu Yu, the worst part of her working day is usually the journey home.

Long waits at the bus stop, large crowds and no air conditioners on buses like the Yuntong 101 will soon be just a bad memory for Beijingers as the city is spending 6 billion yuan ($700 million) this year on upgrading its public transport, more than a quarter of its annual infrastructure investment.

Life will change for Liu, 26, and many more like her from September when a new subway station opens outside her office, part of a broader project to extend and revamp Beijing's ailing underground network.

"That will make it so easy for me," she said. "The only question is whether the subway tickets are going to be cheaper."

Fearing the traffic system will eventually hit a state of paralysis, the Olympic city has made a better-late-than-never decision to multiply the length of its subway lines. It is aiming to have a network stretching more than 550km by 2015, topping that of any other metropolis in the world.

Construction workers have been racing against time to build six new subway and light rail lines covering 155km along the main ring roads since 2003.

Three are already close to completion, including one that connects the main Olympic venues to the downtown area and another that is supposed to ease congestion on the increasingly clogged airport expressway.

Another 100 billion yuan has been earmarked for use by 2010 with funding from Hong Kong and international partners. The municipal government has promised residents that by that date they will have access to a subway station within 1km of any residential district in the downtown area.

Liu said at the moment the situation with the city's buses is so bad it will be unlikely to keep pace with the city's projected future growth, adding a sense of urgency to the in-progress and projected plans.

The millions of commuters who sit in miserable lines of traffic each day during Beijing's lengthy rush hours will no doubt agree.

Beijing sees over 3 million private vehicles and public buses each day on its four major ring roads that encircle the Forbidden City in ever-widening concentric circles, but has only three subway lines with tracks totaling 114km -- a recipe for snarled traffic and frustrated motorists.

The situation on the roads can become disastrous when heavy rain or snowfall overloads the weakest link, the city's drainage system. On August 1, a sudden downpour at rush hour waterlogged hundreds of engines and left drivers stranded in their cars on the North Third Ring Road until 1 am. Five days later, it happened again, this time in the afternoon.

Zhou Yafen, who works in Shunyi, a satellite district close to the Capital Airport, will be one of the many people to benefit from the new transport plans.

From June next year, she will be able to take a quick shuttle train downtown from her office to go shopping, instead of relying on a laborious 90-minute bus ride to the nearest subway station first.

(China Daily 08/08/2007 page40)